Redemption Life Fellowship

Our hope rests in the Jesus who suffered for our sins, rose again, and now reigns over every power. Because we belong to Him, we can stand firmly in truth, respond with gentleness, and keep seeking the good of people who mistreat us.

Following Jesus reshapes our ordinary relationships. In marriage, in the church, and even when we are mistreated, the character He forms within us can become a living witness to His grace.

When we are misunderstood or treated unfairly, Jesus offers more than a better strategy for getting even. The Savior who suffered for us now cares for our souls, and by His Spirit we can respond in ways that point others to Him.

God is doing more than changing a collection of individuals. Through His mercy, He is building a people around Jesus—the living cornerstone—to grow together, love one another, and make His goodness known right where they are.

This message brings the living hope of 1 Peter into ordinary life. We do not have to wait for every circumstance to settle before we can live faithfully. The Father knows us where we are, the Spirit is transforming us, and Jesus has redeemed us. Our unsettledness does not place us outside God’s care or His saving purpose.Peter’s commands can sound like another performance to maintain. But the sermon reads them through the identity Peter has already given his readers: obedient children. We are not behaving our way into belonging; we are learning to live because we belong. The life described here is grace-given, Spirit-empowered, and Word-shaped.

Life is full of things that feel secure until they are not: work changes, health shifts, relationships fracture, and plans unravel. Peter writes to Christians living as elect exiles under real pressure, but before he tells them what to do, he overwhelms them with what God has already done. Christianity begins not with our faithfulness to God, but with God’s faithfulness to us.According to God’s great mercy, believers have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not wishful thinking about an uncertain future. It is settled confidence in a future God has already secured because Jesus walked out of the grave.“Because Jesus lives, our hope can outlive anything.”

Alive in Hope · Thriving Where We Are

When following Jesus makes us feel scattered or out of place, Peter begins not with a demand to do better, but with a reminder of whose we are. God knows where we are, is working in us, and supplies grace and peace for life here and now.

• 1 Peter 1:1–2
• Sam Jones
• September 27, 2026

Even when we feel out of place, we are not misplaced. The hope we have in Jesus gives us what we need to live faithfully and thrive where we are.

Opening the Alive in Hope series, this message follows the greeting of 1 Peter to believers scattered across real places and facing real pressure. Before Peter tells them how to respond to suffering, he tells them who they are: elect exiles, known by the Father, formed by the Spirit, and cleansed and called by Jesus. Their sense of displacement is real, but it is not proof that God has lost sight of them.

Peter can speak to pressured people without shaming them because he, too, knew fear and public failure. Jesus met him after his denial, restored him, and entrusted him with caring for His sheep. The grace that restored Peter is the grace he now speaks over weary believers.

“You may feel out of place, but you are not out of God’s care.”

• Elect exiles: Peter holds together two truths: following Jesus may make people feel scattered, but being chosen means they are neither discarded nor forgotten.
• Real people in real places: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia were more than names on a map. God saw the people, stories, work, and pressures in each place.
• Known by the Father: God’s knowledge is not distant awareness. He knows His people and their fear, grief, and present season; pain does not erase His presence.
• Formed by the Spirit: The Spirit is shaping believers now, not only after the next move, improved relationship, or resolved hardship.
• Cleansed and called by Jesus: Grace and belonging come before obedience. We do not obey to earn a place in God’s family; we learn to live as people Jesus has brought near.
• Grace and peace multiplied: Peter does not promise every pressure will disappear. He prays for what God supplies in the midst of it, including strength for the next faithful step.

Peter’s own story shows that failure need not have the last word. The risen Jesus restored the disciple who denied Him, and His blood brings real mercy to people with real regret. Through Him, we belong to God before we have everything figured out. By His Spirit, we can be changed in the very places where we feel unfinished.

That is why the sermon’s hope is not a promise of an easy place. It is the presence and care of the Father, the ongoing work of the Spirit, and the grace of Jesus Christ—whose resurrection is the living hope this letter goes on to proclaim.

Ask not only “How can I get out of here?” but also “How can I live here as someone who knows I belong to God?” Look for one next act of honesty, courage, repentance, service, or love. The people in your home, workplace, school, neighborhood, or waiting room are not scenery; their stories matter to God.

This is not a call to remain in harm. Some situations require leaving, speaking up, setting a boundary, or getting support. The point is that no place is beyond God’s knowledge or care, and ordinary faithfulness is not wasted in His hands.

This week: Name one place where you feel unsettled. Name one person already there and pray for them. Then take one small, intentional step to show them the hope and love of Jesus.

Psalm 67 teaches us that God’s favor and blessing are never meant to stop with us. As God’s gracious face shines on His people, His glory becomes visible through them so that His saving power is known and all peoples are drawn to praise Him.

Sermon Overview

Psalm 67 begins as a prayer for God’s grace, blessing, and shining face: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.” But the prayer immediately moves outward. The purpose of blessing is not merely personal comfort, security, or success; it is that God’s way and saving power would become known among all peoples.

The message’s central conviction is that God shines His light on us so that His glory is seen through us. As we encounter His gracious presence in our actual lives—at home, at work, in our pain, and in our relationships—His goodness becomes visible to the people around us.

The Movement of the Message

• Grace begins the prayer: God’s shining face is His loving, gracious attention toward His people. We cannot earn His favor by becoming better versions of ourselves; He moves toward us with goodness we could never demand.
• Jesus brings us near: Through Christ, we do not have to live trying to earn God’s look of favor. Jesus took our sin, shame, separation, and judgment so that we can come to the Father as people who have received grace.
• Finish the prayer: “God bless me” is a real prayer, but Psalm 67 teaches us to finish it: bless me so Your grace becomes visible to others, sustain me so Your mercy becomes hope for someone else, and give me peace so anxious people can see that You are steady.
• Become a conduit: We do not manufacture God’s light or force spiritual fruit. Like a wire connected to a power source, we receive His grace, life, presence, and goodness so they can move through us toward others.
• All peoples praise: The end goal is not that people admire how blessed we are. The end goal is that they look through the changed life, peace, kindness, joy, and faithfulness God is cultivating and see what a glorious God He is.

Gospel Hope

Psalm 67 stands on the foundation of grace. All people have a glory problem: we fall short of God’s glory and cannot repair our separation from Him by our own effort. In Jesus, God has moved toward us with mercy, light, redemption, and forgiveness.

• Jesus entered our darkness, taking our sin, shame, and judgment at the cross so that we could receive the smiling, shining face of God.
• Jesus is the light, and His presence is the expression of the glory we lack and deeply need.
• The Spirit makes Christ visible in us, cultivating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control as evidence of God’s work.
• Grace comes to us and moves through us, not so we become religious advertisements, but so people encounter something real of Jesus through His transforming presence in ordinary lives.

Response

Psalm 67 does not tell us to stop asking God for help. It teaches us to finish the prayer. Ask God to bless, sustain, provide, give peace, and bring joy—but ask Him to let that grace shine through your life so that His goodness becomes visible to someone else.

In one ordinary moment this week, ask a different question: “God, how can Your grace shine through me in this?” In a hard family situation, at work, in anxiety, in pain, or in an ordinary conversation, ask the Spirit to cultivate His peace and kindness in you so that others can encounter the gracious King through your life.

Do not let the blessing or the song stop with you. “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations.”

Psalm 1 asks a deeply personal question: what are you allowing to shape the course of your life? The psalm contrasts the way of the righteous with the way of the wicked, showing that a flourishing life is not built on self-direction or the changing counsel of the world, but on delighting in and meditating on God’s instruction.The righteous person is not someone who lives flawlessly. Rather, their life is increasingly aligned with God’s good instruction. They value His Word, return to it, reflect on it, and allow it to influence how they live. In time, this forms roots beneath the surface that sustain them through every season.

Psalm 86 is David’s level-ten prayer: a cry from a place of distress, need, opposition, and deep dependence. Rather than hiding his weakness or pretending he can manage, David brings his whole soul honestly before the God who hears, forgives, loves, delivers, helps, and comforts.

The sermon’s central truth is simple: encountering God’s steadfast love shapes our prayer in desperate places. David’s circumstances remain difficult, but God’s unchanging character gives him a reason to keep calling out, worshiping, surrendering, and trusting.